Greensboro a Fantastic Hornets Pre-Season Host

  As a lot of you have been reading, I have been reminiscing about my trip last fall to Nashville/Tennessee/North Carolina.  Part of that trip included a trip to a Charlotte Hornets pre-season game against the Boston Celtics in Greensboro.  For anyone around the area, you know what the Greensboro Coliseum is.  For those that don't know where Greensboro is or what the Greensboro Coliseum is, it's more or less about east central in terms of location in NC and Greensboro Coliseum is where they typically played the ACC Tournament until the location changed to more of the mid-atlantic states and cities.  So with that, this may be a bit of a shorter blog post, but I will talk about the Coliseum, it's amenities and what I thought of the product on the floor.
  So as I said about the Coliseum, it is actually is quite massive.  It is slated to host about 20,000 or so, and mainly that was the attendance for the ACC tournament with so many NC schools in and around the area and different concerts.  They curtained off a lot of the upper deck seats this time in round as a pre-season game would not get the 20,000 seats filled.  However that didn't stop Greensboro or Charlotte fans from turning out to watch the Hornets on this night.  If I were a guessing guy, there was a good 8 to 9 thousand fans there to watch them play Boston.  You could feel some of the history of the arena from the NCAA tourney games of past and the ACC tournament games of past lore in this arena as you went through the corridors.  The way up the arena is there are stairs to go upstairs to go to your seats and concessions.  It's a bit of an odd twist from other arenas, but it isn't a knock at all and allows fans to evenly get into the arena and through the corridors with ease.  For the Coliseum, the seats are nice and easy to get to, as the sections are clearly labeled as well as the seats are.  Overall it has everything that puts people at ease and is handicap accessible.  So what about the amenities?

Greensboro Coliseum

  Really it is the basics at Greensboro Coliseum when I went.  There were not a lot of specialty items, but you got your basic arena foods, which I had chicken and fries.  I thought they were good and can never go wrong with Dippin Dots.  It had a kiosk or pop-up fan store for the Hornets, which I gladly got a Hornets hat as I typically get a team or event hat.  I thought the food and the merchandise was affordable in price, so was the ticket for pre-season.  Overall I thought the presentation was good.  I thought the food was good and the merchandise selection was also good, albeit limited.  The only down side I think was a few more concessions probably could have been open but this was likely a surprise that there were quite as many people at the game.  I was surprised that there were as many as I saw, because I thought with pre-season it would be a sparse crowd before the season started.  Anyway, the next thing would be what about the product on the court?
  Well the product was fine for pre-season.  You saw some starters get time, like Kemba Walker, Jae Crowder, Frank Kaminsky, and so on.  Obviously the key things for teams are to be healthy with their starting and key role players and fill out their roster after that.  In the end, Boston won the game, but it was all about health and production of the role guys in this game.  I left shortly after halftime, having seen enough of the game with the starters to go with.  But all in all I thought the product was really fine on the court.
  With that, I said goodbye to Greensboro.  While I had a short visit I thought it was a good time.  I thought the Greensboro Coliseum was a nice arena and they should be proud of themselves.  I also enjoyed the product the Celtics and Hornets put on the floor on this night, especially being early on the pre-season.  All in all, a trip well worth it.

My Trip to North Carolina

  As most of you know, or now you know if you didn't know me until recently, that I went to Nashville as well as North Carolina.  Now let's take a lot of the travel out of the way, because from Nashville to where I stayed in Hickory, it's about a six hour drive.  The good thing is you get to see the mountains of Appalachia which are very nice.  The bad is a six hour drive.  However, it is really amazing for scenery.  In retrospect, in the wake of the terrifying and devastating wildfires in Tennessee, it is a place I should have spent a day or two more in but the landscape is so beautiful and to see it coming back is something I feel for the people of east Tennessee.  However there was a visit to a friend prior to getting to Hickory, a longtime friend that I finally got to meet.
  Some of you know I have a friendship with my friend Erika.  She and I have been friends I would think like six years or so.  Since she lives in North Carolina and I live in Wisconsin, it's tough to get time to visit friends elsewhere.  But with this time I got off of work, I was able to plan with Erika to come see her and hang out with her.  So on my way to Hickory, I went to see Erika and get lunch with her as well as donuts.  So with that, we had lunch at a very amazing restaurant called Bruce's Fabulous Foods and the donuts from Mr. Bob's Donuts.  The food and the donuts were absolutely spectacular and if anyone is in the Marion area, definitely I would recommend going there for this.  But it was a lovely time with Erika and hopefully I get to see her again sometime soon.  And that I get to see Marion again because it is a very lovely town settled at the edge of the mountains.  Anyway, Erika is a lovely friend who has been there for me for forever it seems and I am glad we can continue being close and I always want the best for her.  And we take a really good picture together if I do say so myself.

Erika and I

  The next thing I did after the time with Erika was get checked in in my hotel in Hickory.  After that, I headed to Greensboro for a pre-season NBA game between Boston and Charlotte.  I'll follow up with that in a future blog.  Also, I went to JGR fan-fest and met my friend Kabell, which I will also follow that up in a future blog.  Also, I was supposed to go to a Carolina Hurricanes game, but there was the Hurricane that dumped a ton of rain in the Raleigh area and didn't want to risk it so I didn't go.  Hickory has some great restaurants, like Cracker Barrel and Zaxby's which I tried for the very first time.  The hotel I stayed in was absolutely incredible as well.  So I got to see some incredible smaller towns but also something I would recommend for people is they have Hickory Motor Speedway so if you are a racing fan and love short tracks to head there.  Otherwise there are a ton of baseball teams in the minor league level as well as if you are a basketball lover, well there are a ton of college basketball teams, including Asheville and Greensboro as well as the rest of the NC schools.  But I would definitely go out to explore more when I have another opportunity to do so.

Preds Put on a Show

So as you all know, I visited Nashville in the fall of 2016.  If you didn't well read my last blog and we will accommodate you well.  Anyway, one of those trips in Nashville was to see the Nashville Predators NHL team.  For fans of the NHL, you know the Predators well.  For fans of the AHL, or if you are from Wisconsin (such as I am) you will know Nashville from their AHL affiliate the Milwaukee Admirals.  If you aren't a fan of hockey, well just reading the last two sentences have made you more aware of the Nashville Predators and the Milwaukee Admirals.  Anyway, this will be my recap of what I thought of downtown Nashville the night of the game, what I thought of the arena, and what I thought of the game itself.
  Downtown Nashville is something really wonderful.  When you park downtown, you have a host of options to go eat, park, and so much more.  One spot, you have the Country Music Hall of Fame, another is the Musicians Hall of Fame, another is the Nashville Sounds ballpark, and so much more to see and do.  It is no coincidence then that the Nashville Predators not only play downtown but in a great venue like Bridgestone Arena.  The downtown area is just absolutely amazing for parking and they were currently in the process of building another parking structure which would make it even better for the city as the parking options when I was there were limited.  However it is affordable at times, anywhere from 10 to 20 dollars will suffice.  Now that you have the back drop of the city in hand, let's talk about the game itself.

The rink at Bridgestone Arena at game time

  The Predators play at the aforementioned Bridgestone Arena.  Upon entering the building I thought with a pre-season game that there would not be more than 7 to 8 thousand people in the seats and it would be a sparse crowd.  However, I was very wrong on this thought.  There were close to 12 to 13 thousand people I believe at this event.  Much of it could have been due to star defenseman P.K. Subban being traded to Nashville and the resonating effect was more people coming to the arena.  Whatever the case with this, Subban scored for the Preds and the arena went absolutely berserk for him.  Nashville added another couple of goals and won the game 3-1.  This again was a pre-season game so not much really came of it other than really cheap seats and a night out in Nashville that was really awesome.  With that, it's time to review Bridgestone Arena.
  Bridgestone Arena to this writer is a nice arena.  I know they are looking at renovating the building, but when I went there it was quite nice.  The concourses are wide so you don't get jammed up by people standing in the middle of the way.  The team store is quite large, and they have certain sections so you aren't really going four or five different places to find one or two things.  They have a large selection of items so you likely would be able to find your own stuff you want.  The concessions are vast, though with pre-season the selection was not as high as they would be during the regular season and the pre-season is a way to work out the technical and technological glitches.  Overall, I thought the staff did a fine job working with the glitches and the new technology.  Overall, I would recommend this arena to anyone.  If they do mass renovations like what is being reported in the media at points in the last year, I can't imagine it wouldn't be one of the hottest arenas to attend afterward.
  All in all, I think Bridgestone Arena and the Nashville Predators can be proud of themselves for the product they have on the ice and in the arena.  While it'll be a while until I can come back to Nashville, I hope I can come back during the times of hockey again and have a lot of fun.  Until then, kudos to all of the Predators staff, the concession and store staff and the fans of the Predators.  Without all them, a pre-season game would not be nearly as fun as it was that night.

My Trip to Nashville

 So for all my friends, you all know I went to Nashville and North Carolina last fall.  The North Carolina part I'll cover in another blog, but I will cover my trip in and around Nashville first here.  So the reason this all came about was because I liked traveling through Nashville twice, plus my friend Jen is from the area so it all makes it worthwhile (plus when you can get away from work, why not?)  Anyway, the flight from Chicago to Nashville was fine enough and Nashville's airport is actually quite nice.  My taxi driver left a lot to be desired however, and I thought that the trip could hit a rough patch, however that would not be the case.
 So another main reason for my trip was getting to see the Nashville Predators and going to Bridgestone Arena.  Add into that that the state of Wisconsin was like 40 degrees cooler at this point, and it is a win-win to go.  Anyway, while it was a pre-season game, it was really fun to see a lot of people at this game.  Bridgestone is a very nice arena to be at, as it is very wide for concourses.  The team shop is very nice.  If you know me, I get a lot of hats, and yes I bought a nice Predators hat.  Overall, the game was suited for that of pre-season.  There was some star players playing, some second and third teamers and so on and so forth.  So if you needed a program for everyone, I would understand.  Nashville won this game, and all was well for them and I had a good time.  The next day would be interesting too.
 So like I said, part of my trip was meeting my friend Jen (she is next to that odd looking bloke in the picture) and I finally, after like a bazillion years (or like 4 to 5 if you were completely taking count) got to meet the lady!  So let me tell you a bit about her.  She's from the area in and around Nashville and got to give a lot of good tips about Murfreesboro, where I actually stayed.  I will talk to you about that as well later.  So really her ideas of touring things is what got me around the area.  So I was so happy to finally get to meet Jen and have a happy trip!

Jen and I at Sam's 

 Part of those things I got to see pretty much came after the escapade back from North Carolina, but anyway, prior to that I will recommend Go Fun play park for anyone with young kids or just trying to get away for a day.  I played some mini golf and it was fun.  But after my short trip to NC, I had a lot more adventures.  I'll detail the next paragraph the Saturday I got back, but the rest of the trip besides the Saturday involved relaxing that Sunday but doing a lot Monday and Tuesday prior to me leaving that Wednesday.  On Monday of my trip, I got to see the Battle of Stones River battlefield cemetery, which is a battle during the Civil War.  To see and hear about the amount of soldiers from both sides, as well as soldiers from Wisconsin in that fight, who perished was very sobering.  I remember vividly looking at the amount of soldiers graves who are unknown and those with names and couldn't help but think about what that fight overall for the war was for.  But it was something that people should go see to learn about the weaponry at that age of time, as well as a reminder of what was going on in the 1860's in America.  On the last full day in Nashville, I just was a sightseer of the city.  I saw the visitor center, Country Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Sounds Stadium and a lot of different buildings.  I also traveled a bit through Murfreesboro, seeing Middle Tennessee State University and the downtown area.  All in all, it was a lot of nice adventures, but I also got to see one more sporting event prior to the other travels.
 Those that don't know me don't actually realize something, I've started to become a huge soccer fan.  Only once I had been to a international soccer game, a USA-Germany matchup in Chicago in college.  That game was fun, but the traffic pattern was a complete and utter disaster.  But to this game, which was Mexico-New Zealand in Nashville, it was really fun.  Mexico won 2-1, but the Mexican crowd very well brought itself out and showed a lot of enthusiasm and cheered raucously throughout.  I thought it was a fun game to be at as it wasn't a typical USA game, where you have the raucous USA fans.  This crowd was largely Hispanic, and it was really an inviting atmosphere.  I talked to a few Mexican fans and they were very gracious.  They all got a laugh of the Tennessee State Band in the Mexican apparel but all clapped because that Tennessee State band was really, really good.  It is a memory that I hope to have with me for a long time, hopefully forever.  In addition to the days after, it was probably the cherry on top of the great trip.
  In final, there may be people who want me to recommend places to them.  My best answer is just travel around Nashville, sight see, go places you don't know and see what adventure leads your way.  For food, again just roam around.  You see something, go there and have some food.  There are some places in Murfreesboro I would recommend, and they are Sam's, Toot's and Reeves Sain Soda Shoppe.  Nashville is food galore and you'll not go wrong wherever you go.  I hope I can head back to Nashville and Murfreesboro, as it holds always a special place in my heart.  Thanks to everyone, and especially Jen, for making my trip there super special.